


The Rights of Growing Up

by BenevolentErrancy



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Children, F/F, Fluff, Team as Family, post-ME3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 15:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6616417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenevolentErrancy/pseuds/BenevolentErrancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the War over and peace restored, the Normandy crew makes sure to meet up, all together, once a year to reconnect and enjoy each other's company without the threat of imminent death. Upon landing, Liara and Shepard's child immediately finds her pseudo-brother and a terrible idea.</p><p>Liara knew parenting was never meant to be easy, but sometimes she suspects that they have to deal with certain problems most parents don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rights of Growing Up

**Author's Note:**

> A short fill for the Mass Effect kinkmeme to flex my writing muscles again, which was asking for Grunt acting like a big brother to Shepard and Liara's child.  
> http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/9521.html?thread=45125425#t45125425  
> more of an "inspired by" as it deviated somewhat from the original prompt

“Mama, that's not fair!”

Liara pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing heavily to herself. It wasn't that she didn't love getting together with the family for the holidays, but it always, undeniably, got much, _much_ more complicated. And loud.  Especially given that the Shepard-T'soni interpretation of family holidays meant choosing a different cultural holiday every year, meeting on a different planet, and involved a frankly ridiculous assortment of people that included human, asari, turian, quarian, and synthetic, depending on who was available. None of these people, it should be noted, shared the name either Shepard or T'soni, besides for herself, her wife, and their child.

And their child, Nia, was an energetic girl at the best of times – how could she not be, really, considering the stories she had been raised on? That and the fact that neither her mother or her father knew how to slow down and stop, not really. So it really shouldn't be surprising to anyone that when Nia got around her “brother” things always got a little... enthusiastic, if poorly thought out. They had the best intention, Liara reminded herself not for the first time over the years.

“It's a good plan!” Grunt insisted. He had one hand on Nia's shoulder, dwarfing her tiny blue body, but Nia stood next to him with arms crossed and chest thrust forward in a defiance that was entirely Shepard, looking complete comfortable. At ease and very, very determined next to the krogan. Oh Goddess...

When Nia got together with her krogan brother things never were easy.

“Look, I'm sure you two have discussed this–” _at length_ , because they were both stubborn as boulders and ever since Grunt had taken the tiny, baby asari and introduced her to traditional, human literature that almost always involved monsters, murder, war, and espionage in some variance, they had become thick as thieves. It almost certainly helped that as Nia was growing up he had always been more the willing to play Reaper War with her while the other adults were catching up, heavily interspersing his own tales from it, to her delight. And that affection hadn't dimmed at all for either of them with age. “–but it's simply impossible,” Liara concluded reasonably.

“ _Mom_ ,” Nia whined, clinging to Grunt's arm as she jumped up and down insistently. “We'll be careful, I promise! And Grunt will be there!”

“Battlemaster!” said Grunt, in a tone that was almost comically similar despite the fact that he was an easy two odd feet taller than Nia and was considered an adult. Shepard hadn't been joking half as much as she'd thought when she'd met up with Liara on Illium all those years ago and mentioned that she'd accidentally adopted a krogan. “It's a good plan! It's been too long since everyone's been on Tuchanka and who's to say when everyone will return next? We have to strike now!” he insisted, slamming his fists together.

“Yes!” shouted Nia, mimicking the motion, her fists meeting with a concussive blast of biotic force. Grunt roared with approval.

“Shepard,” Liara finally said, turning on her wife, her tone insistent, stern – she refused to even consider that it might sound similar to the two children in front of her.

Shepard looked up from the data pad she had been tapping away on. Now an admiral, the collective force of the Alliance and Council brass had managed to largely retire Shepard from active field work, but that didn't mean she wasn't kept busy in a galaxy that was still slowing rebuilding itself and exploring treacherous new waters. If it wasn't advice on how to proceed with dealings with the geth, it was mediating another turian and krogan squabble, or, most recently, trying to help clean up the mess that the salarians had been stirring up with the yahgs (and if Liara never had to see one of those again it would be too soon). Considering that Shepard's politics, in Liara's experience, involved a judicious mix of reluctance to be involved at all, followed by diplomacy and shouting until she got her way – or shooting when she didn't – it seemed to work out remarkably well. Though this time Liara had a sneaky suspicion that the “urgent call” she had to answer had less to do with galaxy policies and more to do with her trying to leave the duty of “responsible parent” to Liara this time so she could message Legion, or Miranda, or Jack, or someone else who hadn't arrived yet to figure out when they were scheduled to land.

Shepard just held up her hands defensively when she realized she'd been caught out. “Hey, how is this one my responsibility? This sounds like cultural stuff and we agreed that was your field of expertise.”

Liara just crossed her arms and frowned at her wife. “It's definitely not _asari_ culture that's the problem right now. And it's your responsibility because it's your influence that brought this on, I'm sure.”

“No, it was Grunt who told me about the Rite,” insisted Nia. “Mom, stop worrying so much, I can totally do this!”

Liara just raised a pointed brow at Shepard. _The Rite. The Krogan Rite of Passage. Remember telling us stories about that, love? The one where you'd nearly been eating by Tuchanka's charming wildlife? The one your daughter is now determined to go through? That one?_

“Come on,” Shepard insisted, standing up and kissing Liara's cheek. “What makes you think this is my doing? With her having such a power, brave, terrifying mother? Who's to be surprised that she wants to go out and live up to your example?”

Liara didn't pull out of Shepard's embrace, but she did turn her head away to face the hopeful faces of Nia and Grunt.

“Darling, tell your father what you want to do again.”

“Punch a thresher maw in the face!”

Liara turned her glare right back to Shepard, who had the decency to look sheepish. “Okay, that might be my influence,” she admitted.

“You are a good Battlemaster, and you've raised my sister strong!” Grunt agreed whole-heartedly, swinging Nia up onto his shoulder. She had practically grown up riding on Grunt's back, clinging to his browplate, and she sat on his shoulder now with the same level of comfort and excitement as ever.

“But you are part krogan,” Shepard pointed out to her wife, smirking. “This might be genetics.”

“We both know that's not how it works,” Liara sighed, making Shepard laugh impishly. Liara turned back to her daughter. “Nia, you are barely over twenty years old. You are a child. _And_ you're an asari, not a krogan. So no, you will not be running off with Grunt and getting killed in some krogan adolescence ceremony.”

“Papa got to join the _military_ when she was twenty!”

“Eighteen,” offered Shepard.

“You won't even let me go off-world by myself yet,” said Nia, a pout now very evident in her voice.

Shepard sighed, expression finally becoming serious, as she stood up and walked over to pick Nia up from Grunt's shoulder. Shepard settled her in her arms, before sitting back down, Nia curled moodily on her lap. Liara felt her heart swell for these two girls in her life. Nia was growing up so fast, but she had only passed her twentieth birthday a couple years ago; she was still so young. Even now she was still shorter than Shepard, who was more than capable of holding their daughter in her arms like she hadn't grown a day. By the Goddess, her little girl's crest hadn't even fully matured yet, still curling into its adult shape.

“And your papa is a human,” said Liara brushing her hand over that same crest, fingers soft against the last bits of baby fat that still clung to them. “You may have noticed? It's usually pretty obvious by the lack of blue and tendency towards hair.”

“What? And here I thought it was our winning personalities that gave us away.”

“Shepard may be human but she is a krogan Battlemaster and partook in the Rite,” said Grunt insistently. “And her daughter should as well! I'll be a part of her krantt, we will be mighty! They will tell stories of her Rite for years to come!”

“Yeah!” insisted Nia, sitting up straighter in Shepard's lap.

Liara sighed; she should have known better than to think this would be over. Nia was every inch as stubborn as Shepard was, every bit as determined once she'd set her mind to some scheme. And then once she had Grunt around to fuel her determination it was all but a lost cause to dissuade her.

“And we talked to some of Uncle Wrex and Aunt Bakara's kids!” Nia continued, eyes blazing. “Mordin said _he'd_ want to be a part of my krantt! He hasn't done his Rite yet either. And I'll bet Uncle Garrus and Aunt Tali's daughter would say yes if we asked, and–”

“Oh god, you are not asking Garrus and Tali's kid to go into a krogan death pit with you, they would both flail me,” said Shepard, genuinely looking horrified at the thought. Garrus had been with her when she'd joined Grunt in his Rite, and considering how protective both he and Tali were over their daughter she had no doubt that he would cheerfully murder her for suggesting it.

“ _No one_  is going into a krogan death pit!” Liara insisted.

“It is death only for those who oppose us,” said Grunt seriously, to Nia's eager agreement.

“ _Please_ , Mom?” Nia insisted, hands clasped. After a moment, she kicked Grunt, who turned on Liara and mimicked Nia's position. Considering Liara had fought along side Grunt before and had seen the sort of weapons those hands tended to hold, it should not have looked as endearing as it did. “I've been doing really well in my lessons and you _said_  my biotics were really advanced for my age! And I've been getting really good with my pistol when I practice with Papa! And I promise I'll listen to Grunt and be safe and–”

“Shepard, please talk sense into your daughter,” Liara insisted, her hand going back to rub the bridge of her nose. She could feel a headache forming, and Joker and EDI hadn't even arrived with their adopted terrors yet who both took way too much after their father. Only the Goddess in her wisdom could imagine what would happen if those two caught wind of this scheme...

Shepard, meanwhile, had found herself very decidedly cornered. She had been cornered by a lot of things over the years – charging krogan, Collector swarms, _Reapers_  – but somehow the one she quailed under was the combined force of her wife's stern gaze, the eager, vicious one from under a krogan browplate, and the hopeful, upturned one from the daughter in her lap.

Shepard sighed. “I'll talk to Wrex about it.”

“ _Oh by the Goddess, Shepard_.”

Nia's eager shriek was piercing. “Thank you, Papa, thank you, thank you, thank you!” she cried, bounding off Shepard's lap.

“Thank you, Battlemaster! My sister will be a good addition to the Urdnot clan!” Grunt agreed, turning to charge off god only knew where with Nia. Hopefully just to pester Urz and stay out of trouble.

After they were gone, Shepard got up and embraced Liara, kissing her forehead, cheeks, nose, until finally she stopped scowling. “There's no way this will actually happen, Liara. An asari doing the Rite? It was damn hard enough to get Grunt allowed to take it. Wrex will have to say no, and that'll be that.”

“And if he doesn't, Shepard?” asked Liara. “Wrex lives for messing with us.”

Shepard shrugged. “Come on, Liara, you think I'd let anything happen to our daughter? Whatever happens, I promise she's not going to be punching any thresher maws ...at least until she's a bit older,” she added cheekily. “Besides, Jack should be landing any minute, and you know she's a kid magnet. No doubt she's going to end up getting them all up to something that's just a stupid but probably less dangerous, and then Nia will forget all about wanting to imitate big brother Grunt.”

Liara sighed, and rested her head against Shepard's shoulder, appreciating the feeling of her wife's arms around her. “We have a ridiculous family,” she said fondly.


End file.
